Why Your Fraternity Sucks: Lambda Chi Alpha

Dan Regester9 years ago

Some people are brothers of Lambda Chi Alpha. But many, many more people are NOT brothers of Lambda Chi Alpha. This TFM rush preview is for those in the latter group.

Fraternity: Lambda Chi Alpha.

I am not a Lambda Chi. In fact, before putting LXA in the crosshairs for this week’s column, I knew very little about them other than that their philanthropy involved some Gallagher watermelon smashing fetish, most likely to help release every brothers’ pent up sexual frustration, and that Kenny Chesney fine tuned his molestation of country music on your front porch at ETSU.

After about five minutes of delving further into the fraternity, I realized that this was only the tip of one, enormous, bottom-heavy iceberg of humiliation. Most of their shittiness floats submerged, unseen, and unnoticed to the public eye, but they’re a serious threat to any individual that heads in their general direction. I don’t care how big of a swinging dick you were in high school, no boat is too big to fail. Remember the Titanic? That chunk of glacier was a mere pebble in comparison to LXA. Put on the purple, green, and gold, and you will fucking sink to the deepest, darkest depths imaginable.

It doesn’t matter what they’re making now, whoever is working in the PR department for Lambda Chi just isn’t getting paid nearly enough. Give those folks a monstrous raise, because covering up this miserable excuse for a Greek lettered organization is a 24/7, 365-a-year commitment. I’d rather pass a kidney stone once a semester than be a part of this embarrassment.

Size:

194 of the 322 charters are still listed as active. That’s 194 chapters that supposedly dropped pledging altogether back in the ’70s. I get that there are ways around it, but Nationals actually forbids you from even using the dreaded “p-word.” Instead, pledges are referred to as “Associate Members” or “Associates.” I read an influx of emails from Lambda Chi brothers, and the overwhelming consensus is that the Associate Member process is softer than the dick of every guy that’s ever hooked up with Melissa McCarthy. It’s essentially an after school program for toddlers where every shit head kid is carefully handled in both a metaphoric and literal plastic bubble and unwisely told how special they are.

Founding:

Did you ever have some buddy or a friend of a friend get swindled into one of those energy drink ponzi schemes? They then tirelessly hound you into “hearing them out” to the point where you have to block their number. Well before Verve or Vemma, there was Lambda Chi Alpha.

Founder, Warren A. Cole was a straight hustler. Dude bounced around from job to job, slinging jewelry and insurance, working for the Massachusetts Highway Commission, and getting into private investigation with Pinkerton. Whatever could earn him a quick buck, your boy Warren dabbled with it. He actually started three other failed fraternities at Boston University before finally getting to Lambda Chi in 1909. Like they say, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again.”

Cole talked the Cosmopolitan Law Club into reorganizing into the Loyal Collegiate Associates (LCA) because he apparently didn’t know Greek (the name was later officially changed in 1912 to Lambda Chi Alpha). He then corresponded with 117 different institutions and snaked people into starting their own LCA chapters in which he funneled funds from and made profit. He ended up resigning from the fraternity in 1920 after an investigation was launched into his “alleged” embezzlement. Savvy move by the fraternity reinstating him back in during the ’50s. You can’t give any credibility to the belief that your con of an organization, is in fact, a con. That’s just bad for business.

Famous Brothers That Suck:

Kenny Chesney. We all make mistakes in high school that, looking back, we’re not proud of. I had stud diamond earrings and a motherfucking goatee — being the quintessential image of Philly trash — yet listening to Chesney was undoubtedly the thing I’m most ashamed of. But hey, nobody’s perfect.

An emotional Mark Brunell.

Woody Paige. His chalk board shtick was mildly humorous at first, but now I’m uncomfortable with him on my television as he rapidly declines and slips further and further into dementia. Just do the humane thing and euthanize the poor old bastard, ESPN.

From The Horse’s Mouth:

Brother Eric

At a national conference over the summer, some of the chapters were talking about events that are chapter-specific, but the conversation devolved into stuff our chapters are infamous for. Well, turns out that there are more chapters than I’d like to admit that are notorious for finger-banging girls. Normally, it’d be a pretty cool thing for your chapter to be known for hooking up with girls, but our guys are known specifically for playing DJ hero. As in, it doesn’t go farther from there.

In short, if girls want a time without the Plan B, they hit up a Lambda Chi party.

Brother Max

Our seven fraternity core values are quite literally stolen from the United States Army, so now we’ve got thousands of kids running around thinking that they’re special because they know what the word “steward” means.

Also, our original founder, Warren Cole, didn’t actually know the Greek alphabet. Not only did he intend for LCA to mean Loyal Collegiate Associates, but he called our chapters Zetas because another fraternity called their’s Alphas. He wanted to be different, and thought that Zeta was the last letter of the Greek alphabet.

Brother Zach

My chapter forces its active members to see all of the senior classes’ dicks before they are allowed to be initiated. We thought it was fucking weird when we pledged, yet here I am, senior year, and the tradition is alive and well.

Brother Fred

We call our pledges “associates” and they have the same rights of that of a senior brother.

Brother Jon

Nationals banned pledgeship in the 1970’s. If you drop the “p-word” in front of a nationals rep, you might as well light the charter on fire yourself. Hazing is actually forbidden, so the real chapters have to hide everything they do from national reps. We can’t even force pledges to study for tests if we wanted to do that. About half the chapters went along with it back then, which explains why most houses are full of goobers. Those with spines still do things the old fashioned way.

Brother Dan

Our Nationals is a joke. One of the employees told me that it’s considered hazing to have pledges memorize our creed.

Brother Geoff

I was a Lambda Chi from 2006-2010. My junior year a concert promoter, referred to us by a booking agency we used in the past, told us Lil Wayne and the Cash Money Millionaires wanted to perform at our house during ‘row week.’ Row week is basically a week long shit show/musical festival put on by the fraternities at our school. Enough people in the chapter believed him (myself included) that we shelled out nearly $40,000 to book him. The money came from a $230 assessment of members and our housing core fund. The decision was fucking stupid. Hell our chapter advisor, a lawyer, even drew up the contract. Wayne didn’t show up. Shocker. And roughly 1500 people on our front lawn began to boo. It was…not awesome. Everyone left. We looked like fucking dildos. We didn’t have another house party or function the rest of year out of pure fucking embarrassment.

Turns out the promoter was a con-artist and had been swindling concert venues all across the country with the promise of Wayne and crew showing up. He got like $600,000 in fake booking fees. I found this out on an alumni thread last year, 6 years later, because we were listed as a plaintiff in the federal case brought against this asshat. So our president from that year had to testify at a grand jury trail on our behalf in California. That is not a joke. Cut this down however you want for the article but that’s why we suck.

Brother Jack

Some kid transferred over and told us his chapter held pizza parties for pledges during hell week.

Definitive Reason Your Fraternity Sucks

You got got.

Want to be part of the next fraternity rush preview? Just email me at [email protected] and give me ample evidence of why your fraternity sucks: personal anecdotes, encounters with other chapters, etc. I’ll throw any good material into the post and give you proper credit. Next up: Pi Kappa Alpha

In case you missed the others:

Phi Delt

Kappa Sigma

Sigma Chi

KA

TKE

ATO

FIJI